Can I Keep Him?
by SuperGroverAway
Summary: Dipper and his sister investigate the new "pet" Mabel's children have adopted, only to unexpectedly find themselves crossing paths with an enormous blast from the past. (Future-Pines)


Just another dose of family silliness. Enjoy! - **SGA**

* * *

It was a scene that had played over countless times over the years. Stan Pines sat comfortably in his old armchair in front of the TV while his visiting grand-niece and grand-nephew flanked him on either side. As far as evenings went, it was an almost extraordinarily low-key one for the Pines clan.

"...Alright, see you kids in the morning." The old man muttered to the twenty-six-year-olds out of long-outdated habit. At least a dozen bones creaked in protest as rose to his feet to call it a night.

"G'night Grunkle Stan." His great-nephew replied distractedly from his spot on the floor.

"Nightie-night, Grunkle Stan!" His great-niece sweetly chirped from her seat. Leaning heavily on his eight ball cane, the old man hobbled upstairs and out of sight. The two siblings fired greedy glances over at his recently vacated seat. Some prime real estate was now up for grabs.

"Icallchair!" Mabel loudly declared as she bolted for it.

"I call-" Dipper had been a mere split-second too slow, and now his twin happily occupied the faded yellow armchair. She punched the air and smirked victoriously.

"Beat ya, slowpoke!" For a full-grown mother of two, she had very few qualms about blowing her brother a sopping wet raspberry. Dipper feigned surrender with a loud sigh.

"Fine, it's yours. Just remember though...the chair's not so great without _this_!" Dipper snatched the remote off the armrest.

"Oh, no!" She kicked her legs in protest. "Dipper, C'mon! You always pick the most boring-"

Right before the two reached total reversion from adulthood, a curious thump sounded out from the kitchen. The two shot one another knowing looks. It couldn't be Wendy. Dipper's wife and Mabel's sister-in-law was dozing on the other side of the den, with her mouth hanging open and a magazine in her lap. That could only mean one thing.

Together they set off to investigate the mischief. As expected, one of Mabel's two-year-old twins had the fridge door wide open and was rooting through everything in her limited reach. While wrestling out the milk, Gladys Pines accidentally knocked out a head of lettuce. Her spring antennae headband bounced as she tried to chase it down only to run smack into her mother's legs with a surprised squeak.

"What are you doing up, Glad-Glad?" Mabel plucked up the startled child. "It's night-night. You should be in dreamland now."

"Hey, kiddo. Are you...uh...hungry?" Dipper examined the odd scene. Sitting on the floor was a large dinner plate messily loaded with a handful of deli meat, several carrots, and a large glop of peanut butter.

The child shyly sucked on one of her knuckles, then shook her head. "Uh-uh."

"So if it's not for you, then what do you think you're doing, you lil' sillybutt?" Mabel tapped noses with her daughter. "Boop!"

"Um..." It was only when her mother and uncle continue to stare expectantly did she relent with a scrap of information. "I...I-I gotta feed him. It was my tuwn, but I fogot."

"Feed who?" Her uncle gently pried. "Waddles?"

"Uh…." The child was growing increasingly nervous by the second. Hurriedly she threw her stuffed duck up over her head and shut her eyes tightly.

"Oh, no." Dipper sighed. Some odd behaviors had a way of stubbornly passing down through generations. "Gladys, c'mon."

"Nuh-uh." She pressed her face against her mother's shoulder. "Not heah. In Duckville."

"Well it's time to come outta Duckville, sweetie." Mabel chirped comfortingly.

"Noooo." Gladys whined. "Finn and I awn't supposed to tell."

"Supposed to tell us about what?" Her mother persisted. The child hesitantly looked up, and her eyes anxiously darted in the direction of the basement door. As seasoned investigators of the peculiar, both adults read the tell-all clue loud and clear.

"Gladys...did you and your brother make a new friend?" Mabel giggled.

"IIII...I dunno!" She fibbed through her teeth and promptly retreated back into the safety of "Duckville."

"Uh oh." Dipper exclaimed in mock disapproval before giving her a comforting pat on the head.

"I guess it looks like Mommy and Uncle Dippingsauce have to go meet it noooow!" Mabel sang while she lead the way. She couldn't believe she didn't read all the signs sooner. Her children had already inherited her habit of adopting odd "friends." Only a week ago just before their big annual summer trip to the northwest she had found no less than a half-dozen snails hidden away inside a kitchen cupboard.

"Thewe's nothing. Not anything!" Gladys whined stubbornly.

"You know you guys need to tell us when you make a new friend like this, right?" Dipper reminded with a comforting smile. He was genuinely intrigued to see what they had tried to turn into a pet this time.

"Noooo." She nervously squeaked back. "It's nothing. Nothing's thewe!"

"Oh, really?" Mabel smirked as she opened the basement door. "Then if nothing's hiding down here, then I guess it's a million percent okay for us to have a look around."

"NO!" The desperation in her tone skyrocketed. "Mommy, no! He said it's a secwet! We hafta keep it a secwet so I can still be a...a...senadeh!"

"A what?" Dipper flipped on the light switch, and together they descended the steep wooden stairs.

"A sennadah! He said I can be a senedeh!" The adults shot one another confused looks as the tyke struggled to pronounce the word correctly. "He said I could be a-"

"STOP!" A nasally reed of a voice ordered. "By executive order, I command you all to halt!"

Mabel froze dead in her tracks. Dipper was only able to take one more to put him protectively in front of his sister and niece. It was startling enough to hear another person down there, period. However, what floored them even more was just how strikingly familiar the voice was. The twins' memories were jogged instantly.

"...President Trembly?" They sputtered in near-unison. From out from behind a group of boxes emerged a rail-thin man who looked as if he had just stepped directly out of a bygone era, but had forgotten to bring his pants with him.

"Senator Gladys, what on earth is the meaning of this?" The eighth and a half president looked deeply disappointed. "First you're late with the executive dinner, and now you bring unauthorized hooligans down into the Dark Basement? Really, now!"

"I'm sowy." The child hugged her mother's neck and whined guiltily. He furrowed his brow with a heavy sigh.

"I'm not made of presidential pardons, you know. I thought that I made it quite clear to both you and Supreme Court Justice Finn that I am not to be disturbed as I prepare for...oh! Oh my!" He adjusted his pince-nez spectacles as recognition finally dawned. "By Jefferson's wig! Dipper! Congresswoman Mabel! Is it really you?"

"Uh-huh!" Mabel speedily recovered from her initial shock and flashed him a welcoming smile "Hi there! Long time no see!"

"Ah! Such a wonderful sight for sore eyes!" He shook their hands vigorously. "But what on earth brings you here to my office?"

"...This is our great uncle's house." Dipper deadpanned. Warily he eyed the president over. He looked like he'd barely aged a week since they last saw him on that fateful Pioneer Day so many years ago. "What are you doing down here?"

"Hmmm..." The eccentric founder of Gravity Falls stroked his well-groomed mustache. "Well...I suppose it's safe to divulge my plans. After all, you two have done plenty to earn my trust. All right then! Well to make a long yarn short, I have spent another fourteen years encased in a block of peanut brittle."

This did nothing to clear Dipper's confusion. "All right. Soooo...why exactly did you do that?"

"Why to give myself some time to think, my dear boy!" As he spoke he stabbed the air wildly with a thin finger. "After you two revived me, I quickly learned that the America of the present is not at all the same nation that I left behind. While I admit that much progress has been made in certain areas, there is also much that still plagues our grand republic. And so, feeling overwhelmed by all that transpired and all that was left sadly unfinished, I encased myself again. For years I remained hidden away in brittle, mulling over the state of the union. What could be done to help get this nation back on the right track? Then it finally hit me! Who better to correct things then I, the president?"

"Of course!" Mabel was quickly swept up in his infectious enthusiasm.

"Indeed! Now, it took a few years for me to get free again. It was only after the help of a patriotic bear was I able to begin charting a new course for the country. However, my initial efforts to establish a new federal capital out west were for naught. As it turns out the salamanders out here make for incredibly poor staff. Their dictation is just some of the worst that I've ever seen. So after my first attempts, two days ago I staked out this new location and have since been basing my operations here with the help of Chief Justice Finn and the esteemed senator."

Gladys meekly raised her tiny hand, signaling that he had been referring to her. Dipper scratched his head while he pieced the facts together. "So...let me get this straight. You're trying to reform the country from here. In our great-uncle's basement."

"Yes! It is from here that I shall reassume my role as president of these great and mighty United States!" He continued to animatedly punctuate his words with enthusiastic gestures. "The Dark Basement is far superior to a White House. Why? Because it shows great humility! A national leader needs that! And that's only one of the sweeping changes I have planned. Now consider this. Just how many states do we have now? Far too many, I say! So I'm working on simplifying it down into two; the Left State, and the West State. Once we do that and pass a long overdue nationwide pants prohibition, we'll then be ready as a country to take on our greatest foe; the dreaded pancake menace! I may be a bit behind on international state of affairs, but I bet those British scoundrels have perfected the technology to make a pancake able to withstand pats of butter the size of a full-grown steer..."

As he rambled on about his vision for a new America, Mabel listened intently, hanging on to every word. Her eyes had bulged wide in deep adoration, but less the inspired kind and more the type one would shower upon a week-old puppy.

"Awww...he got even sillier!" She cooed to her brother.

"Wait, what's that you say?" He stopped in mid-speech, then brightened up as inspiration struck. "Aha! Wait my dear girl, I've got it! I think it's just what I need to help get my plans off the ground. Mabel, I hereby strip you of your position as Congresswoman..."

Mabel physically deflated with disappointment, but her sadness was short-lived. With a flourish he dug a brilliant gold-trimmed sash from his jacket. "And I bestow upon you the position of Vice President of these two United States! Congratulations!"

"Really?" She gasped in delight. Her smile now threatened to take over her entire face. He reached back into some hidden pocket and added the customary black felt top hat to her official outfit.

"Yes! Now that we are reunited by grand coincidence, I can think of no one better to help me implement my official policy. Your first order of duty; turn off those lights! It's well past my bedtime, and the president needs at least eight full hours of executive slumber! Good evening to you all!" Without further ado, he leapt backwards into what looked like a cocoon fashioned entirely out of cardboard scraps and old Christmas tree lights. He shut it up tight, putting a final end to the absurd meeting.

Gladys burst out squeaking with laughter and furiously clapped her little hands.

"Funny! Mommy, he's so funny!" Her eyes shined with hope. "Can we keep him? Peeease?"

"Well…" Mabel chuckled as she examined her shiny new sash. She couldn't lie, the idea was initially very tempting She pictured the ex-president playing with the kids in the backyard of her house, and found the mental image surprisingly heartwarming. "Maybe Mommy could think about it a little-"

"What? Seriously? Mabel, no." Dipper crossed his arms and countered flatly. His twin was thinking about this far too much for his liking. As much as he didn't like being the bad guy, he definitely liked the idea of his sister adopting a nineteenth-century politician even less.

"...Can we keep him?" A very puzzled Gladys asked again.

Mabel sighed. However, now that she had only a few more seconds to think about it, she reluctantly came to her parental senses and took the responsible course of action.

"Hey, hun-bun? Do you remember the time when you guys found that snake in the garden?" She gently asked. "Remember Captain Crawls?"

Her daughter mulled for a moment and gave a sad but understanding nod.

"Okay, good, because this is kinda like that. Look, I know you think Trembly is funny, and I know you care about him. Buuuuut if you really love the ex-president...then you'll have to let him go free. You know that, right?"

Luckily for her they had gone through this routine before with at least a half-dozen other different "pets" in the past six months alone. Gladys nodded. "Yeah…"

"That's my big girl." The relieved parent pecked the tyke's forehead. "First thing tomorrow, we'll let him go, okay?"

"Okay, Mommy." She peeped.

"Good! All right, now it's finally time for nightie-nights."

Together the little group headed back upstairs. It didn't took long for Dipper to notice that while his niece seemed to be taking it all quite well, his sister was pouting like an upset toddler.

"Mabel, c'mon." He comfortingly pat her shoulder. "We both know you can't keep him."

"Still got Waddles." Gladys chirped optimistically. "You 'member?"

Mabel automatically cracked a smile at the thought of her clan's beloved pet pig.

"Yeah, I know. I guess Mommy's a little down because your Uncle Dipper was kind of a harsh butt." She impudently stuck her tongue out at her twin, much to his chagrin.

"What?" Dipper shut and locked the basement door tight. "What else was I supposed to say? C'mon, you were just thinking about adopting a two-hundred year old man."

"A-hem. In case you forgot, brother," She made a major show of straightening out her sash and hat. "You need to show a little more respect when speaking to your vice-president…"


End file.
